Senate Judiciary approves contempt resolutions against Rove, Bolten

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved contempt resolutions against Karl Rove, the former top aide to President Bush, and Joshua Bolten, the current White House chief of staff. The vote was 12-7.

The criminal contempt resolutions now move to the Senate floor, although no action on them is expected until next year.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), ranking member of Judiciary, voted in favor of issuing the contempt resolutions, saying the committee's oversight responsibilities must be upheld.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) also supported the resolutions.

"It is a vote that I would prefer not to make," Specter said. "It is a vote I make with reluctance."

The House Judiciary Committee has also approved contempt resolutions against Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not set a date for a floor vote yet.

The committee subpoenaed Rove and Bolten over the summer as part of its probe into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year. Bush, citing executive privilege, refused to allow Rove and Bolten to testify or turn over documents to the panel. Bolten was subpoenaed in his role as custodian of White House records, while Rve called to testify over his knowledge on the role politics played in the firings.

Leahy said that he and Specter had working to modify the resolutions since they were first debated last week, but added that the panel must enforce its subpoenas if it is to be able to conduct effective oversight of the executive branch.

"The White House counsel asserts that executive privilege covers all documents and information in the possession of the White House," Leahy said, referring to White House counsel Fred Fielding. "They have further and claimed immunity even to have to appear and respond to this committee's subpoenas fr Mr. Rove and Mr. Bolten. And they contend that their blanket claim of executive privilege cannot be tested but must be accepted by the Congress as the last word."

Leahy called this stance "a dramatic break from the practices of every administration since World War II in responding to congressional committees."

Update: White House officials dismissed the Judiciary Committee vote as a political stunt, and they pointed out that Leahy had stated that the Justice Department under former President Clinton would not pursue criminal contempt citations against White House officials when it occurred back in 1999. The Justice Department has stated that it will not allow the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeffrey Taylor, to pursue this case in court. Taylor would normally represent Congress in any legal battle with the White House.

"Senate Democrats are showing that they're more interested in headlines than serious legislation, and they should be fully aware of the futility of pressing ahead on this," said Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman, in a statement.

"It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, that the constitutional prerogatives of the President would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. Attorneys."

Perino added:"Senator Leahy may have summed it best in September 1999 when he said the following:

'The criminal contempt mechanism, see 2 U.S.C. section 192, which punishes as a misdemeanor a refusal to testify or produce documents to Congress, requires a referral to the Justice Department, which is not likely to pursue compliance in the likely event that the President asserts executive privilege in response to the request for certain documents or testimony.'"